Читать книгу Golden Fiddles - Mary Grant Bruce - Страница 3

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‟IWOULDN’T give it another minute,” said Mrs. Balfour earnestly.

“I think it’s done,” said her daughter. Her tone was breathless, her face a study of concentration. “At all events, it’s coming out. Shut the oven door—quick, Mother! And please don’t speak to me for a minute, or I’ll lose my nerve.”

“Don’t get fussed: I won’t even look at you,” said Mrs. Balfour, smiling. She closed the door of the oven as Kitty backed away from it bearing a pan in which a delicately browned sponge mixture brimmed. Followed a tense moment. True to her word, Mrs. Balfour gazed intently at the kettles, while smothered gasps from her daughter punctuated the final moments in the career of a sponge roll. She heard the quick tap that told of the reversal of the pan on the table, with an agonized “It’s sticking!” from Kitty: she thrilled a second later as the empty pan clattered to the floor: then, despite her own counsel of calmness, she held her breath, following in spirit the lightning movements of jam-spreading, the last harrowing uncertainty of rolling-up. Not until a triumphant “There!” showed that the operation was complete did she look round.

“Oh, a beauty, Kitty!” she said. “I don’t think you ever made a better one.”

“Not a crack,” said Kitty, regarding the roll at all angles. “Rolled like a dream, Mother. Just one awful moment when I thought it wouldn’t turn out, and then all was well. Do you think it’s too brown?”

“Not a bit,” said her mother. “I don’t like pallid sponge rolls: if I were judging I would always give the prize to a well-cooked one—they’re so much harder to roll without breaking. Well, that one won’t disgrace you, Kitty. Wrap it up quickly, dear, and get to your scones. I’ve washed the mixing-bowl.”

“You’re a dear,” said Kitty gratefully. She folded the roll in a spotless towel, put it on one side, and plunged at the flour-sifter. “The oven’s just perfect, thank goodness. Not that I’ve any chance with scones; there are always at least twenty entries. But ten-and-six is worth trying for—or tenpence-halfpenny. Just fancy if I won it, Mother! I wonder how I’d feel if I had a whole ten-and-six of my own!”

“I should like you to know the feeling,” said Mrs. Balfour, with a little sigh.

“Wonder what I’d do with it?” said Kitty, measuring cream-of-tartar with a wary hand. “It’s a lump of money, isn’t it? Gloves for you, you old blessing, and ties for the boys—Norman’s best tie is a tattered string, and he does hate it so. Pencils and fiddle-strings for Elsa, of course; or a drawing-book: after all, Father generally manages to get her fiddle-strings. It’s his one extravagance. I dare say Bob would rather have a knife than a tie, but he needs the tie more.”

“And what for yourself?”

“Oh, I don’t know. We’d see what was left over. It would be tremendous fun spending it. Mother—Father wouldn’t make me put it in the Bank, would he?”

“No—he promised me he wouldn’t, if you won any prizes.”

“That’s a relief,” said Kitty, sighing. “It nearly broke my heart when the money for the little pig had to go into the Bank. Because that was my own little pig, that old Mrs. Barnes gave me, and Father had nothing to do with it. I suppose it was wise. But thirty shillings in the Bank seems so useless, and it would be such dazzling wealth to spend.”

“It’s safe where it is,” Mrs. Balfour observed.

“That’s the sort of thing Father says, and ‘You’ll be very glad of it some day,’—as if I didn’t know that already! But I want to be glad now. Oh, well, it’s no use worrying. I’ll go off and earn my own living when I’m twenty-one, and then I’ll be like the Prodigal Son and never put a penny in the Bank—but I’ll have a good time.” She cut her light, bubbly dough into neat squares with quick, deft movements: everything that Kitty did was accomplished with the same effortless swiftness. “You’ll back me up, won’t you, Mother? You’ll let me go?”

“Yes, I’ll let you go, if your father will agree,” said Mrs. Balfour, with a sigh. “The place won’t seem the same without you, but I wouldn’t keep you here. It isn’t life, for a young girl.”

Kitty put her scones into the oven and began clearing the table.

“I wouldn’t mind being poor,” she said. “There aren’t any rich people about here. But I’d like to be poor cheerfully—not to fuss and worry all the time, as Father does, and always making the worst of things. Why, he looks as if the world were coming to an end when any of us want new boots, till it makes one ashamed of having feet!”

“But he has to find the money, you must remember.”

“Yes, and he always does find it. It just means having a little less clearing done, or selling a few sheep before he wants to—but he can always manage. Then why can’t he do it cheerfully? After all, we’re never hungry, even if we are shabby. But I’d willingly go hungry now and then if he’d only make a joke of it.”

“But you don’t understand his anxieties, Kitty. There is the mortgage: the Bank is not easy to deal with. Father has to bear it all.” She was loyal, even though she ached in sympathy with the beating wings of youth.

“Well, if he’d tell us everything and make mates of us, it would be different,” said Kitty stubbornly. “We’d all be glad to help if he didn’t act as if we were leeches. Much we get out of being leeches, anyhow! Oh, well, it won’t go on for ever, and if you weren’t such a darling I wouldn’t care—but you are, and so you get the worry from both sides. At any rate, it’s Show Day to-morrow, so we’ll have one day’s fun. And look at those scones! They’ve risen nearly to the top of the oven!”

Mrs. Balfour laughed.

“Well, I haven’t been able to do much for you, Kitty, but you’ll always be able to earn a living as a cook,” she said.

“A good, plain cook,” added a cheerful voice, from the door, as a tall boy of seventeen, in blue shirt and dungaree trousers, appeared. “Especially plain! No, I say, Kit, I didn’t mean it, if those scones are for tea. May I have one now?”

“They’re my Show scones, Norman Balfour, and don’t you put a finger on them,” said his sister swiftly.

“Rippers, too; they’ll take some beating,” said he. “But what about that poor little three-cornered offsider? You couldn’t show him, could you?”

“No, I suppose you can have that,” agreed Kitty. “Half a minute, and I’ll butter it for you. My goodness, I am hot! Cooking for a Show isn’t any fun, in November. Yes, it is fun, though, but it’s hot all the same. What have you been doing, Norman?”

“Putting a last bit of polish on the bull,” said her brother. “We’ve hosed him and groomed him, and rubbed up his horns, and all he wants is a bit of blue ribbon. And with luck he’ll get that to-morrow. I don’t think there’s an Ayrshire to touch him in the district. Now he’s in the shed, and Father is looking at him in dreamy pride. Finished your cooking, Kit?”

“Yes—I made my other cakes this morning. Norman, if you get the vegetables dug I can wash them for you.”

“You’re a brick,” said he gratefully. “I was just going to do them, and milking will be late as it is. Besides, I want to give Bob a hand with his pony when he comes home—poor old Nigger will want plenty of extra grooming if he’s to have any chance to-morrow. Sure you’ve got time to do it, Kit?”

“Oh, yes: I’ve only got to iron my frock and some shirts, and they won’t take long. Elsa can help Mother when she comes in. Here’s another scone—he didn’t cook evenly.”

“More luck for me,” said Norman, accepting the scone. “He tastes evenly, anyhow.” An expression of bliss overspread his good-looking face, and he paused, his mouth full. “Kitty Balfour, you’ll come to a bad end in a workhouse. You’ve put jam on this fellow as well as butter!”

“Oh, well, Father isn’t here—and little boys need nourishment when they’re growing as fast as you,” laughed Kitty. “Hurry up, now, and be sure you don’t break any of the parsnips’ tails when you dig them. Leave everything on the back veranda, and for pity’s sake shut the yard gate or the calves will get in and devour them.”

“After which, the next step would be Father devouring me,” said Norman lightly. Kitty followed him with her eyes as he went out. They heard him whistling on his way to the kitchen garden.

“I do think Father might have let him show the vegetables in his own name,” she said, a pucker between her brows. “Goodness knows he does all the work of the garden, and plenty besides, and he never has a penny. It would have been such an encouragement to Norman.”

“I did suggest it, but your father didn’t seem to see it,” admitted Mrs. Balfour. “He doesn’t see any need for Norman to have money when there is so little cash. After all, as he says, he had none at Norman’s age.”

“Well, a boy needs encouragement,” said Kitty sagely. “And such a little would give it. Father’s hard to work for, you know, Mother. A bit of praise doesn’t cost anything, but he doesn’t give that either. I suppose he has got so used to being economical that it affects his tongue! Norman won’t stand it for ever, you know: when he gets a bit older he’ll go away, and then Father will find out that he has lost a jolly good helper.”

“Ah, don’t, Kitty,” said her mother sadly. “What shall I do if you both go?”

“I’m a pig,” said Kitty, in swift contrition. She draped a freshly-ironed shirt over a chair and dropped a kiss on top of her mother’s head. “I didn’t mean to worry you, truly, darling. But it would be better for us to go: if we stay on the farm things would go on as they are for ever and ever, but if we go we’ll earn money and give you a better time somehow. And meanwhile Elsa and Bob would be growing up to take our places. There’s not room for us all on this one-house little place.”

“And what would you do?”

“You said what I’d do, a while ago,” said Kitty stoutly. “Cook. I wouldn’t have any frills, Mother: I’d take a place as cook, and in every bit of spare time I’d go to one of those working colleges and learn advanced cooking and fancy touches. Before you’d know where you were I’d be getting a huge salary as a chef.”

“But, my dear—you’d be a servant!”

“Well, it wouldn’t hurt me. All the old Balfours for hundreds of years back might be turning in their graves, but I wouldn’t be there to see! Let ’em turn! I want money, and I’m going to get it with the only talent I’ve got.”

“Money isn’t everything, Kitty.”

“Well, Father has brought us up to think it is. And it does make the wheels go round, Mother. I want to be independent, and I want to see something beyond a hill farm in Gippsland. Look at that!” She held up the frock she was ironing. “My best dress—nice serviceable gingham, and I’ve had it for my best for two years! What a mercy for Father that I stopped growing when I was sixteen!”

“I did want you to have a new frock for this Show, Kitty. I tried, but——” Mrs. Balfour stopped, biting her lip.

“Of course you did, darling. Do you think I didn’t know that? And Father nearly hit the roof in his agonized astonishment. I’ll bet you anything he said, ‘Hasn’t the girl got a dress already?’ Own up, now—didn’t he?”

Mrs. Balfour hesitated a moment and then broke into laughter.

“Kitty, you’re a disgrace,” she said, “I ought to be cross with you, but——”

“But you aren’t going to be,” said her daughter cheerfully. “You might be if I couldn’t laugh over Father’s little ways, but then I can. We’re all able to do that, and thank goodness you can’t help laughing too. I daresay we’d sulk if you weren’t such a dear, you know, Mother. But we know it comes hardest on you, and yet you keep young and you laugh at all our idiotic jokes, and we’d lie down and let you wipe your boots on us if it would do you the least good. It doesn’t take me a very long while just now to count my blessings, though I expect I’ll have more some day. But to the end of my life the one at the head of the list is going to be that I had a mother who could play the fool!”

“It doesn’t sound quite the properest qualification for a parent,” said Mrs. Balfour, smiling, though her eyes were moist.

“Well, you ask Norman and Elsa and Bob. They know,” said Kitty, nodding wisely. “There, all the ironing is done, and I think I’ll go to see whether Norman’s finished. I might be able to give him a hand over picking the peas. Sure you don’t want me for anything?”

“No, I’d like you to go to Norman—he looked tired.”

“That’s not to be wondered at, for he was out before five this morning,” said Kitty, who had not been much later herself. “Mind you make Elsa set the table—if she begins at that old fiddle she’ll forget all about it.” She kissed her hand to her mother and was gone.

Outside, the November day was still hot and airless. The green of the Australian spring lingered yet in the lush grass of the paddocks and the dense orchard foliage: but the flowers in the tiny front garden were hanging their heads wearily, sighing for coolness and rain. It was a very little garden, because the Head of the House of Balfour saw no use in flowers. Not that he disliked them: theoretically, Walter Balfour admired flowers as he admired paintings, sculpture, or—rather more practically—music. Had not Kitty borne witness that he afforded Elsa fiddle-strings? But flowers were unprofitable; worse than that, to a poor man, they represented time diverted from other things: time which might be made to earn money. Therefore the flower-beds were strictly limited, and would not have existed at all had not his wife and daughters tended them.

But the kitchen garden—that was another matter. There, rows of vegetables stretched luxuriantly, in orderly profusion, until they came to the long lines of fruit-trees; and their weedless perfection was mute evidence of the diligence of Norman’s hoe. They furnished no small part of the weekly income, though Mr. Balfour had found it hard enough to spare time for their cultivation until Norman had left school, when the post of gardener had been conferred upon him. Norman hated them with a hearty hatred. He had not liked school overmuch, though it had represented a certain amount of fun in games and companionship; but it had been better than the ceaseless war with weeds and slugs and the innumerable pests that afflict vegetables. The farm was well enough: he wanted to learn its work, because it was only by qualifying as a farm worker that he saw any way of future escape. But carrots and beans and celery—how were they going to get a fellow any further? He was young and fairly docile, however, and not without a certain feeling of what was due to his father: a feeling that would have made him cheerfully shoulder any burden had that father been easier to deal with: and being blessed with a nature as happy as Kitty’s no day’s work was really irksome. But there were moments when he stigmatized the growing of vegetables as “only fit for a Chinaman.”

Kitty could see him as she came round the corner of the house, bending low over a bed of peas. Already a pile of root-vegetables awaited her on the back veranda, and she had seen at a glance that the tapering points of the huge parsnip roots had not been broken: but she left them and went on to join her brother. He greeted her with a friendly grin, straightening his tired young back.

“Didn’t you see the rooty things? I took them up.”

“Yes, but I’ve plenty of time to do them while you milk. I can pick these.”

“Not you; besides, I’ve done the peas, and now I’m going after broad beans.”

“Well, I’ll pick those.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Norman said. “I know all the best pods, and you don’t. There’s one whopper I call Horace, that’s as long as a wet week, only he’s a retiring chap, and you might miss him. And there are Albert and Cyril and Algernon: all friends of mine that I’ve been massaging for weeks, to develop their muscles for the Show. I couldn’t trust the beans to anyone. You go and tub carrots.”

“Oh, don’t be a duffer, Norman! What about the lettuces?”

“Picked, and in water. And the rhubarb is tied up in bunches, and the French beans and cauliflowers are done. Tell you what, you can get nice little bunches of herbs for the collection if you like—you know, mint and sage and thyme and parsley and all those measly little things. That’s a nice girl’s job.”

“Very well,” said Kitty, accepting the insult meekly, and hurrying to the corner of the garden sacred to herbs. She finished her task as Norman came over from the bean-rows, bearing a heavy basket.

“Horace hid,” he announced, waving a giant beanpod. “Dear little chap, he was shy and didn’t want to go to any beastly show, but I caught the flick of his tail as he dodged behind a leaf. Isn’t he a champion?”

“I wish they were all like him,” said Kitty, peering into the basket. “But they’re a very good lot, for all that. Any others I can get?”

“No; only wash the roots, and be sure you use plenty of soap,” he grinned. “It’s a great help, truly, Kit: you, I mean, not the soap. I was afraid I wouldn’t be ready when Bob brought the cows up, but he’s only just in sight.”

He nodded across the paddock where a boy and girl on ponies could be seen between the trees, driving some cows slowly before them. It was always the part of Elsa and Bob to run up the milkers on their way home from school; a necessity which Bob deplored, since it meant no chance of cricket with other boys when lessons were over. To-day, however, he had needed no spur to hurry him home: his beloved Nigger was to appear in the show-ring to-morrow, and Norman had promised to help him with the final grooming. There was no one like Norman for putting an extra touch of polish on a horse’s coat and making mane and tail like rippled silk. Elsa’s pony was entered too, but that was only because, as an exhibit, he had a free ticket into the Show-ground. Father was a member of the Agricultural Society, and could make as many entries as he liked without paying; and it was better for a pony to be in the grounds than tied up to the nearest fence outside. But no one seriously thought of putting old Barney actually into the ring. Barney’s best days had been over some years ago, and Bob had been very thankful when Norman’s leaving school had promoted him to riding Nigger. Some people hinted that Nigger was past his first gay youth, but to Bob he was the finest pony that ever looked through a bridle; and if the judges did not think so to-morrow—well, it just proved that the judges didn’t know their job.

The cows were in the milking-shed when Norman came out of the yard, and Bob was trotting up the hill ahead of Elsa. He was a sturdy, square-built boy of thirteen, with a freckled, honest face and a shock of fair hair that never would keep tidy for a moment: a matter that did not trouble Bob at all. He hailed Norman with a shout.

“Hullo, Norm! Will I come and help you milk, or would you rather I started grooming?”

“Better get on with the grooming, I think,” Norman answered. “Give him a good wash-down and get his legs clean, and then you can work at the mane and tail until I come. Wash Barney too, while you’re about it.”

“Aw, what’s the good of wasting time on old Barney? He’s got no chance.”

“He’s going to the Show, so he has got to look decent,” said the big brother firmly. “Can’t disgrace the family by sending him in looking like a worn-out doormat, especially with Elsa riding him.”

“Well, why can’t Elsa groom him?”

“Not if he looked like forty doormats,” said Elsa, arriving. She slipped to the ground wearily as she spoke—a tall child of fifteen, very slender and with brown eyes too large for her delicate face. “Goodness, isn’t it hot? The road is nothing but dust, and I thought it would never end. Norman, you don’t really want me to groom him, do you? I don’t mind a bit if he’s dirty, and I’m so tired.”

“You look as if you’d had about enough,” Norman answered, eyeing her with some concern. Kitty was his chum, but the little delicate sister was very near his heart. “No, of course you’re not to touch him: Bob and I will clean him up.” He took the bridle from her and unstrapped her heavy leather school-bag from the saddle. “You clear inside and get something to drink; and just take it easy, or you’ll be like a wet rag to-morrow.”

“A wet rag might be cool, anyhow,” Elsa said, smiling at him. “I don’t feel as if I would ever be cool again, or as if I wanted to see the Show or anything else—except a bath.”

“You won’t think that to-morrow,” said Norman wisely, while Bob gaped at the amazing folly of which girls were capable. Anyone who could even dream of not wanting to go to the Show was, in Bob’s estimation, not right in the head. But girls were always queer, and Elsa especially so: he had long since given up trying to understand her. A girl who looked on a pony as simply a necessary means of getting from place to place—who liked messing about with drawings and evoking weary wails from a battered fiddle——! It was beyond Bob.

He led the ponies into the stable-yard, unsaddled them and exchanged their bridles for halters, which he left trailing on the ground: they were tired and were not likely to move, and Bob was never wont to go to any unnecessary trouble. Then he looked about for a bucket.

There was usually a bucket nearer the stable tank, but to-day it was not to be seen. Bob looked through one ramshackle shed after another with a slowly-rising irritation: just his luck, he reflected, on the very evening that he had no time to lose. Some one would go and hide the bucket just because he had to wash two ponies. The door of the last shed was shut and barred: he wrestled with the bar, grumbling aloud, so that he was not conscious of a deeper grumbling within. The bar came out, and he flung the door open.

Something big and menacing loomed in the gloom of the shed before him—Cicero, the great Ayrshire bull, already in a thoroughly bad temper from the indignities that had been inflicted upon him through the afternoon, ending in solitary confinement in a dark and stifling shed. He put his head down and charged, and Bob, galvanized into horrified action, dodged only just in time, and fled into the nearest doorway. The bull gave a savage bellow, bursting into the open. Nigger and Barney were placid ponies, but they knew an angry bull when they saw one, and they did not wait. They raced madly from the yard, Cicero at their heels. He cared nothing for ponies, or for boys either: but freedom lay before him, with the cool shade of the trees round the big water-hole at the end of the paddock, and it drew him like a magnet. He lumbered down the hill at a heavy gallop, roaring as he went.

There was no need for anyone to explain to the unhappy Bob the full horror of what he had done. There was Cicero, all ready for the Show, glistening with polish from horns to hooves, a thing of gleaming white and brown representing hours of work—and it was he who had let him out to where dust and dirt and mud awaited him. The pony that might have saved the situation had gone too, fleeing in terror before him. To pursue was fairly hopeless, but it was the only thing to do. He snatched his bridle from its nail and dashed wildly from the yard, his speed heightened by a sound far more terrifying to him than Cicero’s roar—his father’s voice, raised in a shout of fury. From the tail of his eye Bob saw him hurrying from the house, and the sight lent him wings as he scudded down the hill.

Some one cut across the grass to meet him: Norman, with a set, flushed face.

“By Jove, you’ve done it!” he uttered. “Here, give me the bridle.” He snatched it from the boy’s hand and went racing on; and Bob followed, not from any hope of helping, but because to turn back was to run into the lion’s mouth. If Cicero had got to the water-hole it seemed to Bob that he might as well go there too and drown himself.

The ponies had not gone far, finding that the bull was not seeking their lives. They turned aside, watching him thunder past, in mild amazement that any animal should so needlessly be moved to gallop. Nigger gave a whinny of greeting as Norman ran to him. The boy exchanged the halter for the bridle with a swift movement, flung himself on the pony’s back, and was galloping before he had gathered up the trailing reins.

Old Nigger knew what was required of him in a moment—the memory of other days came to him, days when he had known the glory of cutting out bullocks on a cattle-station. Then he had been familiar with every twist and turn of the delightful game; and years of jogging to school along dusty bush roads had not robbed him of the old craftiness and the old dash. He stretched himself out in pursuit of the bull, scarcely needing the incentive of Norman’s shout and his drumming heels. They did not follow directly—there was no sense in chasing Cicero into the water-hole. The only chance, a faint enough one, was to get round him and head him off, and they took a line that would enable them to wheel and face him.

Behind them, Bob had caught Barney, and was scrambling on his back when a hail from his father gave him pause. Mr. Balfour was running towards him, stockwhip in hand, and for a moment the boy thought that his punishment was upon him. The sense of his iniquity was so crushing that he faced it without thought of escape. He trotted towards his father, shutting his lips tightly.

But Walter Balfour had no thought of vengeance at the moment. He thrust the stockwhip into the boy’s hand.

“That pony won’t carry me,” he said quickly. “Get that to Norman if you can—he can’t turn him without a whip.” And as Bob wheeled, flailing Barney into a gallop, another shout came to him—“Tell him not to hit him if he can help it!”

That almost made Bob laugh, had laughter been possible to him at the moment. To give a fellow a whip to head a bull, and yet not to hit him—it didn’t seem sensible. Still he knew what it would mean to Cicero’s appearance in the show-ring if long weals marred the perfection of his grooming—angry marks that would show so clearly on the pink skin underlying the fine white silken hair. The inclination to laugh turned into something like a sob.

Far ahead, the bull had dropped into a heavy trot that grew momentarily slower. The water-hole was very near, a still, gleaming sheet of quiet coolness; he knew just how delightful it would be to wade into the shallow end, where gum-trees met above, making a patch of dim shade free from flies and other troublesome insects. There was deep mud there, soft and squashy clay; how often, on hot afternoons, he had wallowed there, hock-deep in its delicious caress. Pleasant, kind mud: it caked on the legs as it dried, making a protective covering, fly-proof and lasting. He would make straight for it—nay, more, he would lie down in the clay-bottomed shallow, forgetting all the horrors of the afternoon. Humans might dare to affront a bull with brushes and swabs for a time, and if you had a copper ring through your nose it was wise to appear to submit. But he would show them who was master in the end. He would show them what he cared for their swabbing!

Then, just as the water rippled almost at his feet, came drumming hooves and a ringing shout, and Nigger dashed between him and the pond. Dust flew from the dry mud bank as the pony propped; one end of the halter shot out and brushed the side of his head, and the bull half-turned, trotting aside with an angry bellow. It was better luck than Norman had hoped for, only possible because he had taken the foe by surprise. Now his one chance was to follow it up, and he rode at him, shouting.

But a full-grown angry bull is an awkward matter to tackle on a bare-backed pony, with no better weapon than a soft halter. Cicero sized up his aggressor in a moment. Who was this yelling boy, to turn him from his just desire? He knew, and scorned, old Nigger; he knew halters, and that they could not hurt him unless they were passed through the annoying copper ring that had been riveted through his nose while he was yet too young to know it as a badge of slavery. But it was free now, and he could afford to despise the halter. He ran for a few yards, from mere force of habit. Then he stopped, and when the halter struck him again it merely added to his wrath. He planted his feet firmly and lowered his head, uttering a deep rumbling growl. Norman pressed as near to him as he dared, well aware that he must give no chance of the pony’s side—the stout half-curved horns were all too ready for action. He shouted again and again, whirling the halter furiously round his head. “You old brute—if I only had a whip!” he yelled.

As if the bull fully understood the words he advanced slowly, and Nigger gave back, dancing before him. It was clear that they could not stop him, but Norman was too blind with anger to be always cautious, and he struck his heels into Nigger and dashed straight at him. It was almost a fatal dash. Cicero bellowed and charged, and though the pony slipped aside like an eel, the wicked horn ripped through the leg of the boy’s loose cotton trousers and made a long graze along the pony’s flank. Then he was past them, and into the water. He waded in knee-deep, plunging his hot muzzle into the cool ripples, triumphantly careless in his victory.

“Ow!” It was a long wail from Bob, arriving an instant too late. “The old beast, he’s in! Has he hurt Nigger?”

“Not much,” said Norman, between tight lips. “Good business—you’ve brought a whip! I guess I’ll hurt him, or I’ll know the reason why.” He took the whip and trotted round the pool. “Bob, you be ready to keep him going if I can get him out—but don’t get in front of him. He’s in a savage temper, and you can’t dodge on old Barney.”

Bob flung himself to the ground, picked up the halter his brother had dropped, and was back on Barney in a moment. “Right-o!” he called back. “I say, Norm, Father said not to mark him if you could help it.”

Norman laughed shortly.

“I’d like Father to have the job of getting him out without marking him!” was all he said.

Cicero saw his enemy ride into the water in front of him with deep annoyance. He had thought these troublesome gnats were finally brushed off; but here they were again, disturbing his new-found peace, as if they understood that a bull finds it difficult to charge in water. Then the whip sang suddenly and flicked him painfully on the ear, and he made a rush at them. Nigger dodged; but even as he dodged his hoof found a deep hole and he slithered sideways, tried to recover, struck another hole, and finally went down on his side, kicking furiously and sending Norman under the surface.

Whatever steps Cicero might have taken cannot be told. He would certainly not have faced the flailing hooves, but it might have gone hard with pony and rider as they struggled to their feet had it not been for Bob. Wholly desperate, the boy thrashed Barney, all unwilling, into the water, and in a moment the bull found himself confronted with a new enemy—a maddened urchin who screamed and shouted hoarsely, aiming blows at him with a whirling halter. None of them took effect, but the determined fury of the onslaught checked the bull. There was a shout, too, not far off; a man’s angry, anxious shout. Mr. Balfour was running through the trees. Then Nigger was up again, and Norman, drenched, but still armed with the whip, was on his back, pressing towards the fray.

“Get back out of there, Bob, I tell you!”

The whip cracked like a pistol-shot. There is extra power of stinging in a wet lash, and the blow that fell across Cicero’s nose was exquisitely painful. He backed, bellowing: the whip spoke again, falling in almost the same place, on the soft nose-tip that is to a bull what the heel was to Achilles. It was too much for Cicero. He wheeled, splashing through the muddy water to the bank. Behind came the two ponies, both riders shouting, the whip-cracks in a fusillade of rapid fire, not hitting him, but as devastating in their moral effect as though the blows had actually fallen. Cicero capitulated. The odds were too strong, he told himself as he trotted obediently up the paddock, the ponies jogging in his rear. He growled as he went, savage and uneasy, but the fight was gone out of him, and the great head never turned.

Bob held the yard gate shut as Norman shepherded the captive into the shed. They put up the bars and looked at him.

“Not much damage, is there?” the younger boy asked nervously.

“Hardly any. His legs’ll have to be washed, of course, and he’s a bit splashed, but that’s nothing—there’s not a mark on his body. Mighty luck. You were pretty mad to ride in like that, Kid, but things would have been a bit awkward if you hadn’t.”

“That wasn’t anything,” said Bob gruffly. “I got an awful scare when you went under. Thought he’d get you.”

“Might have, too, but for you.” The big boy’s hand rested on Bob’s shoulder for a moment. “Well, let’s have a look at Nigger.”

Nigger was marked, but not badly. There was a long weal across his quarter, but the skin was unbroken. “I s’pose that spoils his chances to-morrow?” Bob asked, with a catch in his voice.

“Not necessarily, I think,” Norman said doubtfully. “The judges could be told. Anyhow, it wouldn’t spoil them in the school-pony class, and you know he hasn’t got much chance at the best of times in the hacks. Well, we’ll do the best we can to make him look well. Tell you what—you’d better go and finish the milking. Goodness only knows where I dropped the milk-bucket when I heard old Cicero bellow, but it’s somewhere about. I’ll have to help Father with him before the mud dries on his legs—then I’ll tackle the ponies.”

“All right,” said Bob. “I’ll hurry all I can.” He turned, and then stopped. “Here comes Father,” he said, and shrank against his brother.

Walter Balfour came with long strides into the yard, his face wearing its habitual expression of sternness.

“Is the bull marked?” he asked shortly.

“I didn’t touch him with the whip, except on the nose,” Norman answered. “Apart from that there’s nothing we can’t clean up in half an hour.

“H-m—that’s as well. As for you, Bob——”

Norman broke in:

“It was every bit my fault as much as Bob’s, Father,” he said stoutly. “I ought to have warned him the bull was in the shed—how on earth was he to know?” He took his courage in both hands. “Indeed, you might have warned him yourself. And if it hadn’t been for Bob charging him on old Barney, Cicero would have got me in the water, as sure as fate.”

“It was a near thing—I saw it,” admitted Mr. Balfour. His face lightened, and he looked at his younger son with a half-smile. “All right, Bob—I wasn’t going to punish you, anyway.” Suddenly his voice changed. “I say, Norman—you’re hurt!”

Norman glanced at his leg. Beneath the torn trouser, now nearly dry, were glimpses of skin half hidden beneath a pleasing mingling of caked blood and mud.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said indifferently. “He caught me and Nigger, but we’re only grazed. I’ll wash it off when we get done.”

“You’ll go and wash it now, and get it tied up,” commanded his father sternly. “Don’t frighten your mother, that’s the only thing.”

“There’s an awful lot of blood,” said Bob uneasily. He was on his knees, examining the damaged leg. Norman laughed down at him.

“Oh, you go and milk!” he said. “My leg’s all right. I say, Father, don’t try to handle Cicero before I come back. He’s not in a pretty temper. I’ll be as quick as I can——” And he ran towards the house, whistling.